Difficulty:

Just Right

Time Spent:

10 Hours or Less

The Bottom Line:

"Disastrous"

Requiem is, sadly, no more than a puzzle game. Think of it as an attempt to make Portal using the Penumbra engine, minus the portals, GlaDOS and a storyline. You're presented with a series of puzzle rooms where you have to push levers, drag boxes, open hidden compartments and all the actions you've been performing in previous titles to advance the storyline, but this time there's no story at all.

Just as in previous games, you're told to dim the lights and adjust the contrast to better enjoy the horror setting but this time it's a farce because there will be no enemies, no voices in the dark and no atmosphere. Well, if you're afraid of boxes, metal crates or pipes, you might be scared.

There are a few pieces of information related to the series plot, presented as journal entries, which you'll hear once you find them inside the game but that's about it. The entries are not bad, the voice acting is just as competent as in Overture or Black Plague but this time everything is disconnected from your actions. It's like playing a poker game and every time you win, you get to hear to a journal entry.

The puzzle rooms are closed environments, accessed through a portal that opens once you solve a puzzle. You go from a digging site straight to a sleeping quarter and then to a factory. You're not given context, just rooms with boxes, pipes and levers.

It's clear that this game was rushed, it's incomplete. They've assembled what they had in one or two months, pieces of a game, patched and released.

Do yourself a favor and don't play Requiem, keep in mind the good memories of the first two games.